The craft of personal narrative. The state of nonfiction today -- On the necessity of turning oneself into a character -- Reflection and retrospection : a pedagogic mystery story -- How do you end an essay? -- The uses of contrariety -- Imagination thin and thick -- Facts have implications : or, is nonfiction really fiction? -- On the ethics of writing about others -- Modesty and assertion -- On writers' journals -- The essay : exploration or argument? -- The made-up self : on the difficulty of turning oneself into a character -- Research d personal writing -- The lyric essay -- The personal essay in the age of Facebook -- Studies of practitioners. Lamb's Essays of Elia -- Hazlitt on hating -- How I became an Emersonian -- Teaching James Baldwin -- Edward Hoagland : the dean of American essayists -- The memoir and its critics : two takes.